TUMUT Turf Club's scheduled first TAB meeting in 19 years on Saturday has been postponed until January 18 after it became the latest NSW meeting to be affected by the bushfire crisis.
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With catastrophic fire conditions expected for Saturday, plus a searing forecast of up to 44 degrees, stewards had little choice but to call off the meeting.
As the community readies itself to combat the worsening fire conditions, postponing the meeting was the only logical decision with the health of horses and participants paramount.
"There hadn't been any change in the forecast through the week and obviously with all the fire warnings on the day, it's supposed to be pretty ordinary," Southern District Racing Association chief steward Jason Schultz said.
"We're fortunate we were able to find another date for them. It's Tumut's first TAB race meeting for some time and they've done a lot of work into getting the track to where they have."
Conditions were good enough for some horses to train at the Tumut track early on Thursday but conditions worsened considerably as the day progressed.
Tumut track curator and trainer Kerry Weir said it was vital the club retained its TAB meeting, which is set to inject much-needed money into the club.
"It's huge, there's massive benefits that come with a TAB meeting," he said.
"We've spent a lot of money to irrigate this year out of our own pockets, but we're lucky we can get water and a lot of other clubs can't.
"They (Racing NSW) have been great helping us out. It's a bit disappointing but with fires you can't do much about it, we're just thinking about the poor buggers out there fighting them."
The region is experiencing a massive backlog of horses desperate to find a meeting to race after Gundagai's New Year's Day non-TAB meeting was cancelled due to poor air quality, while Moruya and Sapphire Coast race days met a similar fate.
At this stage Albury's Friday meeting will go ahead. but with a top of 40 degrees forecast Level Two of Racing NSW's hot weather policy has been invoked.
However, stewards will continue to monitor the air quality and will provide further updates on whether it will proceed.
Racing is scheduled for Wagga on Thursday, January 9.
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